Part 9 (1/2)
Agatha reached, out a hand. ”I'll take that plate of steak-and-kidney pudding away from you, Bill Wong, unless you explain yourself.”
”Leave it alone. I'm hungry. Oh, I suppose the press will get hold of it. When her husband asked for a divorce way back when, she tried to commit suicide.”
”Emotional blackmail,” said James. ”Probably didn't mean to go through with it.”
”She would have done the job all right bottle of barbiturates, bottle of vodka but for one little miracle. A neighbour whose flat overlooked hers pa.s.sed his day in watching the women opposite through binoculars, although he subsequently swore to the police that he was bird-watching. So he saw Mary swallowing pills and drinking vodka and swallowing pills until she slumped over the table and he called for an ambulance and the police. She was rushed to hospital and her stomach was pumped out. She was subsequently treated several times for depression, the last being when she was living in New York. She moved there after the divorce to a flat in Was.h.i.+ngton Square in the Village.”
”My cleaner, Doris Simpson, was about the only person who didn't like her when everyone else seemed to,” said Agatha. ”She said something like, ”No warmth there. It's as if she's acting.” Do you think that? Why come to the Cotswolds?”
”She is English,” pointed out Bill.
”Where from?”
”Newcastle originally. Her parents are dead. A lot of outsiders move to the Cotswolds. Take you two, for example,” said Bill.
”But don't you see,” said Agatha, pursuing her theme, ”she was acting being the perfect village lady, baking and gardening and so on. If she had lived, she might have tired of the act, moved somewhere else and adopted another role.”
”Speculation,” said Bill, shaking his head. ”I need more solid facts. I may as well make use of you while you're here. Let's start with the people who had their gardens ruined. Mrs Bloxby? Who would have a spite against Mrs Bloxby, of all people?”
Mary, thought Agatha suddenly, but could not voice her suspicions without betraying the confidences of the vicar's wife.
But another idea struck her. She said, ”James, do you remember when you were supposed to take me out for dinner in Evesham?”
”Very well indeed. That was the day I got food poisoning.”
”And that was the day you visited Mary!”
”What are you getting at, Agatha? I didn't dine with her.”
”But surely you had something to eat?”
”Let me see, coffee and home-made cakes, as I recall.”
Agatha's eyes gleamed. ”And then you were too ill afterwards to take me for dinner. I had told Mary you were taking me for dinner.”
”Wait a minute,” said Bill. ”Just hold it there. Are you suggesting that Mary put something in the cakes so that James would be ill and would not be able to go?”
Agatha nodded.
”That's ridiculous,” said James.
”Did she eat the cakes as well?”
James said slowly. ”No, she didn't. She said something about being on a diet.” In fact, what she had said was that she had no intention of becoming as frumpish as Agatha Raisin by letting her figure go.
Bill Wong's eyes were suddenly shrewd. ”I think you're suggesting also that Mary Fortune might have been the one who ruined the gardens. Do you know something about Mrs Bloxby, say, that you're not telling us, Agatha?”
”No,” mumbled Agatha.
He gave her a long look and then said, ”Okay. Let's start with you, James. Now the idea was that whoever ruined the gardens wanted to put compet.i.tion out of the running. But let's just give Agatha's theory a whirl. Did you upset Mary before your garden was set alight?”
”As a matter of fact, it was shortly after I had told her the affair was over.”
”So let's examine the rest. Mr and Mrs Boggle?”
”Forget them,” said Agatha. ”They annoy everyone.”
”All right. Miss Simms, then, the unmarried mother who is secretary of the Ladies' Society.”
”We'd need to ask her,” said Agatha. ”She's not the type to irritate anyone.”
”And Mrs Mason?”
”The same,” said Agatha gloomily. ”Need to ask.”
”Mr Spott, he of the poisoned fish? I mean, if by some far-fetched chance Mary was out for petty revenge, then it need not be just plants.”
”Bernard Spott adored Mary,” said James. ”He would never have said a word to annoy her.”
”We're getting nowhere,” sighed Bill. ”I don't think your argument's got a leg to stand on, Agatha. Say one of those maddened gardeners decided to get revenge on Mary, which one can you see doing it? Mrs Bloxby, Miss Simms, James here, Mrs Mason, or the Boggles or old Mr Spott?”
”Must be someone from her family or her past,” said Agatha. ”Was the husband in America the whole time?”
”Yes.”
”But it must have been someone she knew,” said James suddenly.
”Why?”
”There was no forced entry. She opened the door to whoever. She was poisoned. Someone slipped weedkiller in her drink. What drink?” he demanded, looking at Bill.
”Hard to say, but from the contents of her stomach, brandy, I think. It was a strong measure of weedkiller.”
”And you've checked all the weedkiller suppliers?”
Bill groaned. ”Do you know just how many places in the Cotswolds sell weedkiller? Legion. But yes, we are getting around to them all.” Agatha had taken a menu from the waitress and was studying it. ”Never say you are going to order pudding, Agatha?”
”Icky-sticky pudding,” said Agatha firmly. ”Anyone else?” They all ordered the sticky toffee-syrup-laced sponge. Why was it, thought Agatha gloomily when she had finished the last crumb, of pudding, that desserts like this, which could slip down her gullet in the old days without any effect, immediately made the waistband of her skirt as tight as a corset?
”I think the daughter is the best bet,” she said over coffee. ”Surely it's very simple. She inherits. She did it, or her boyfriend.”
”Her own mother?” protested James.
”She could have wanted it to look like the work of some maniac,” said Agatha.
”I tell you this,” said Bill, ”if it was a maniac, it might just have been some fellow who called at the door.”